The marquee outside the Whisky a Go Go announced a sold-out show by Wicked Lester, but the banners and posters all over the building’s red stucco exterior made it clear who’d really be onstage at the venerable West Hollywood club on Monday.

Kiss, the band Wicked Lester became in 1973 after Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons stumbled into the idea of creating comic book characters with wild face paint and crazy costumes, just embarked on its farewell tour, and along with the huge venues the band will be playing the venerable rockers decided to make their Whisky debut before it’s too late.

“It’s so cool to be here,” singer-guitarist Stanley said at the end of “Cold Gin,” one of 12 songs the band played in its 70-minute set. “Right now, we’re in the middle of our End Of The Road tour, playing all the arenas.

“And to be able to go back and relive what we did once upon a time,” he said, referring to playing a small club. “It’s pretty frickin’ awesome.”

Stanley, who wears the Starchild makeup, and Simmons, who dons the Demon face, are the only original Kissers. But guitarist Tommy Thayer, the Spaceman, has been in the band since 2002, and drummer Eric Singer, the Cat, had been in and out of the group since 1991.

They sounded tight and looked great too, seeming to have equal amounts of fun to that of the crowd who’d scored tickets to the invitation-only show presented by SiriusXM.

KISS performs onstage during a private concert for SiriusXM at Whisky a Go Go on February 11, 2019 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for SiriusXM )

Gene Simmons performs with KISS at the Whisky a Go Go on Monday, Feb.11, 2019, in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

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KISS performs onstage during a private concert for SiriusXM at Whisky a Go Go on February 11, 2019 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for SiriusXM )

Gene Simmons, left, and Paul Stanley perform with KISS at the Whisky a Go Go on Monday, Feb.11, 2019, in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

KISS performs at the Whisky a Go Go on Monday, Feb.11, 2019, in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Gene Simmons, left, and Paul Stanley perform with KISS at the Whisky a Go Go on Monday, Feb.11, 2019, in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

KISS stands in front of the Whisky a Go Go marquee, which billed the band under its previous name, Wicked Lester, for a private Sirius XM show at the West Hollywood venue on Monday, Feb. 11, 2019.(Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for SiriusXM )

KISS poses with LL Cool J on Monday at the Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood. The band played a private concert for SiriusXM at the venue. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for SiriusXM )

Gene Simmons performs with KISS at the Whisky a Go Go on Monday, Feb.11, 2019, in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

(L-R) Gene Simmons, Eric Singer, Tommy Thayer and Paul Stanley of KISS pose on Sunset Boulevard for the KISS private concert for SiriusXM at Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood, on Feb. 11, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for SiriusXM )

KISS performs at the Whisky a Go Go on Monday, Feb.11, 2019, in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

KISS performs at the Whisky a Go Go on Monday, Feb.11, 2019, in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

KISS performs at the Whisky a Go Go on Monday, Feb.11, 2019, in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

From the opening number “Deuce” through such favorites as “Lick It Up” and “Love Gun” to the confetti-filled finale of “Detroit Rock City,” the band turned the Whisky into the sweaty kind of rock box where Kiss first made its name some 45 years ago.

So it was almost dizzying to be this close to a band like Kiss. You notice how perfectly the Cupid’s-bow lipstick of Stanley is applied or how a little five o’clock shadow is visible on their unpainted necks.

You really notice how weird Simmons’ serpentine tongue is, how it goes out, then down farther than you think a normal tongue should, then shoots forward a little at the bottom. I seem to have spent most of “War Machine,” for which Simmons sang lead, hypnotized by that organ.

But you’ll get more show in the arena: the trade-off can be boiled down to this: No pyro and just a dozen songs, instead of the 20 they’ve been playing at their arena shows so far.

Of the songs missing at the Whisky on a Monday, the most painful not to hear was Kiss’s usual encore-closing hit “Rock and Roll All Nite,” and “Beth,” the band’s biggest-ever single which Singer usually sings in place of original drummer Peter Criss.

OK, but really?: I glanced at the back of the tiny club during “Lick It Up” and discovered a TelePrompTer scrolling the lyrics of that and every other song of the night.

Literally like this:

“Lick it up

“(O-O-Oooh)

“Whoa yeah,” for one chorus.

I mean, I noticed Barbra Streisand did the same thing at Staples Center a few years ago, but after all these years is it that hard to get the oohs and whoas in the right places?

3) Big dumb hard rock is fun! There is nothing wrong, not one thing, with silly Kiss songs. Well, as long as they don’t do “Christine Sixteen” any more, which wasn’t cool when it was released in 1977 and Simmons was 27, and would be even more gross for him to sing today at 69.

But songs like “Shout It Out Loud” and “Say Yeah” or ” I Love It Loud” and “Do You Love Me” — all of which Kiss played on Monday — can’t help but get get you pumped up a little.

Who can resist singing along while these guys in the black and white makeup and black and silver and rhinestone spandex or codpieces — looking at you again, Simmons — rock out on stage.

Peter Larsen has been the Pop Culture Reporter for the Orange County Register since 2004, finally achieving the neat trick of getting paid to report and write about the stuff he's obsessed about pretty much all his life. He regularly covers the Oscars and the Emmys, goes to Comic-Con and Coachella, reviews pop music, and conducts interviews with authors and actors, musicians and directors, a little of this and a whole lot of that. He grew up, in order, in California, Arkansas, Kentucky and Oregon. Graduated from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore. with degrees in English and Communications. Earned a master's degree at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Earned his first newspaper paycheck at the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, fled the Midwest for Los Angeles Daily News and finally ended up at the Orange County Register. He's taught one or two classes a semester in the journalism and mass communications department at Cal State Long Beach since 2006. Somehow managed to get a lovely lady to marry him, and with her have two daughters. And a dog named Buddy. Never forget the dog.